“Economists are generally negligent of their heroes.”

“Aren't most romance heros, or heros in fiction of any kind, generally superior to real men? Same goes for heroines and real women.”

“There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.”

“Economics is really about two stories. One is the story of the old economist and younger economist walking down the street, and the younger economist says, ‘Look, there’s a hundred-dollar bill,’ and the older one says, ‘Nonsense, if it was there somebody would have picked it up already.’ So sometimes you do find hundred-dollar bills lying on the street, but not often—generally people respond to opportunities. The other is the Yogi Berra line ‘Nobody goes to Coney Island anymore; it’s too crowded.’ That’s the idea that things tend to settle into some kind of equilibrium where what people expect is in line with what they actually encounter.”

“A hero is a goddam stupid thing to have in the first place and a general block to anything you might wanta accomplish on your own.”

“There remains the unforseen. And the unforseen is never negligible. ”